


Bodies and Beasts

by LoonyLoomy



Category: Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Bad End Friends, Cannibalism, Child Death, Coerced Suicide, Crossover, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Demonic Possession, Gore, Humor, M/M, Murder Husbands, Self-Mutilation, Torture, Unhappy Ending, Vivisection, possessed!pinescone - Freeform, slightly sexual undertones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:07:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26258413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLoomy/pseuds/LoonyLoomy
Summary: "Those that enter shall become part of my forest. No matter how long it takes,” the Beast says, his eyes glowing with colour.“Oh, don’t worry, pal, this flesh-sack can spend an eternity here. You can have him. All I’m asking is to have a little fun with it first.”“Oh?” The Beast tilts his head, feeling the weight of his antlers as he does.
Relationships: Bipper/Beast!Wirt, The Beast (Over the Garden Wall)/Bill Cipher
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37
Collections: Over the Gravity Falls (After Dark)





	Bodies and Beasts

**Author's Note:**

> ...you ever write 500 words of a fic, put it down, come back to it 5 years later and finish it in a matter of weeks? No? Just me? Okay, then.
> 
> Welp. 5 years since I last posted an Over the Gravity Falls fic and it's... this. Look, I know I'm not the only one who loves [possessed!Pinescone](https://overthegravityfalls.tumblr.com/tagged/possessed!pinescone), but I NEED MORE FIC. So. I wrote it.
> 
> Enjoy? (And seriously, please do heed the tags, I got a lot of fucked-up shit in my head out in this fic.)
> 
> And hey, why not join the [Over the Gravity Falls Discord server](https://discord.gg/QuTTSJd)?

There is a body in the woods. He discovers it on a day when the air is cold, despite the brightness of the sun. In another time, he would have receded into the deepest, darkest parts of his domain in such conditions, but he no longer needs to be so closely tied to the night and shadow; now, the plainness of day could serve him just as well.

The body reminds him of his own still-new form: made of flesh, bones, skin. Teenaged, brown-haired, slim. It is more similar to him than he realises at first.

It lies there motionless until he approaches it. When he leans down, its eyes open wide, and he can see through them that the being inside it is not one who belongs. The amalgam grins, and it continues to grin even as he wraps his hands around its neck and clenches hard. Such a body can usually be coerced into becoming a part of his forest, with muscle and intent being just as effective as the deceit and patience he was once limited to, but this one seems to warrant a different approach. It seems to _enjoy_ the ministrations he is putting it through. Unconcerned, his fingers twitch and their grip loosens; he comes to a stand. After all, his lantern is still burning strong from that younger brother's oil, as little as his Edelwood tree had been; and he has, too, a heart within him which beats black around his body.

"Don't they teach you manners in this plane of existence?"

He stares at the being with white, narrowed orbs.

"As it happens, you're actually not that far off from what I want from you. But an introduction wouldn't hurt, pal! Here, look. Name: Bill Cipher, occupation: this kid's flesh sack. See how easy that was? Haven't even tried to strangle you yet!" It—he—rubs a hand across his neck and bares his teeth again in a facsimile of a smile.

"How did you come by that vessel and to my woods?"

'Bill Cipher,' as he calls himself, sits up, putting his weight on his forearms. He watches closely in case Cipher tries to do anything as unpredictable as his nature seems to be. "Oh, me and Pine Tree go way back. Introduced him to an awesome apocalypse before he and his family had to go and _ruin everything_." His voice lowers, and his face contorts into a scowl at those words, but, like lightening, it passes in an instant. He brings himself to his feet and dusts himself off, then meets his eyes. "Take it from me, do _not_ wish on Shooting Stars, no matter what people tell you.

"Buuuut I'm getting sidetracked here. Point is, he was mine to control a few years ago, and after all those difficulties he and his family caused, I thought a little _payback_ was in order. That annoying little pest took his time in dropping his guard--honestly, had more forms of protection than a Trojan factory! —but my waiting paid off. Eventually, he awakened my statue. Curiosity killed the cat, am I right? And so, here I am!" Cipher does a little flourish with his hands, and he notices that his white sleeves are stained heavily with red. “Now, you wanna introduce yourself, Beast boy?”

“…You know me. Therefore, you know that the Unknown is my domain. Those that enter shall become part of my forest. No matter how long it takes,” the Beast says, his eyes glowing with colour as he remembers the thrill of finding the brothers in his woods again. They had carried freezing water in their lungs ever since their fateful journey, and it had dragged them back to the forest from a pair of white-sheet beds. One to bear his weakened being, one to fuel his flickering soul. He blinks, his eyes white again.

“You got a bit of personality in there, huh? Yeah, yeah, I know you—got my mitts in all sorts of dimensions. The Unknown is a funny name for Purgatory, but, whatever. Just thought you could be _polite_ about it, you know?”

He cares not for how much this being talks. Underneath all of the blabber, he wonders what he means to gain by coming here. If he thinks he can saunter out, he is mistaken. “You are… intriguing, but your vessel is still young enough; here, it will remain,” the Beast says, his voice soft.

“Oh, don’t worry, pal, this flesh-sack can spend an eternity here. He’s already suffered a punishing fate in his physical reality, but I am _not_ satisfied with just making him kill himself and leaving all of those Pines heartbroken. You can have him. All I’m asking is to have a little fun with it first.”

“Oh?” the Beast says, tilting his head, feeling the weight of his antlers as he does.

“He’s in here. With me. Pine Tree. First time around, I kicked him out, but now, we’re roomies in this here head of teen angst. And hoo boy, he is _not_ happy about it. See, I _love_ pain, and I love how much squishy and breakable stuff is inside these gross human bodies. It’s hilarious! I had to rush through everything in the physical realm, but now…” Cipher grins so wide it looks like it could split his face in two. “I can take my time in torturing him. Care to explore with me, Beast?”

He follows along well enough with the story this demon tells, as strangely as he tells it, and his ideas stir something sadistic in him. He wonders, though, “Why would you simply dispose of the body when you could utilise it, Bill Cipher?” He himself enjoyed that shadow of consciousness within him and the empty, hollow sadness and regret it emitted. Wirt’s emotions had burned through his being initially, as heated as the fire of the lantern, but once the Edelwood branches were all ash, the boy gave himself fully to the Beast. There was nothing else he could do.

“Eugh, when I take over the world, it will be with my equilateral perfection. No, no, the slow torture and crash course in forestry will do just fine for Pine Tree—or should I say Pine-Edelwood Tree?”

“You should not.”

“You’re right, let’s just get on with it. Here, I have something that’ll help,” he says, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a knife coated with red.

The Beast plucks it from his hand, running his slim fingers along the flat steel. He taps on the point and a pinprick of black blood swells from his digit. “Yes, this will do nicely.”

“Why don’t I just lie back and think of England?” the demon says with a wink. He spreads his arms out like a cross and falls back, hitting the ground with an “oomph.” The Beast straddles him, taking his time to get comfortable, but Bill Cipher is impatient. He squirms and pulls at his shirt collar, making the button strain until the Beast carefully nicks the thread with the blade and sends the button flying.

First, he can cut his shirt open, then, he can cut his chest open.

Settled in place, the Beast works on revealing this Pine Tree’s milky skin. It is dotted with bruises and old scars here and there and looks unnaturally pale. His ribs are just about visible, his body skinny. Delicate.

“Get on with it, I’m vibrating in place here!” Bill Cipher urges.

He rests the blade on the centre of his chest, making Cipher still, and applies a bit of pressure to it. Blood oozes out and continues to do so as he pulls the knife down, past his ribs and across his stomach. It is only a shallow cut, surface-level damage. Enough to sting.

Cipher lets out a breath, sounding satisfied. The Beast repeats the motion horizontally, vertically, diagonally, until there are lacerations all over his chest.

“Mmm, this would pair perfectly with some lemon juice.”

The scarlet rivulets look too inviting to resist, and he leans down and licks his tongue up the red stripe. The bright, coppery taste delights his senses, and he collects more blood with his fingers and sucks them clean.

“Hey, think you missed a spot there,” Cipher says, his voice taking on a raspy tone. He props himself up and grabs the Beast’s face, swiping his tongue across a smudge of blood on his cheek. Cipher surprises him by twisting his face forward and invading his mouth, wrapping around his teeth and gums and all the inner spots he has missed. It is less of a kiss and more a cannibalistic instinct he cannot seem to help. The Beast allows it, closing his eyes and waiting for him to finish his exploration.

“Yum,” the amalgam simply states, then leans back without any further comment.

He notices he has spots on his cloak, though that is nothing compared to how many stains are on Cipher’s shirt, the contrast of red on white stark and harsh. Cipher decides to do away with it, taking the clothing off completely and discarding it besides him. The Beast can clearly see, now, the ugly gashes that had stained his sleeves, following his veins from his wrists down his forearms.

He wants to excavate this body.

The Beast takes a hold of Cipher’s hand, resting the knife where it had carved a path through skin in the physical realm. This time, though, he will take it deeper. He lets the knife feel its way down the path, then pushes, pushes, _pushes,_ until bone scrapes against the blade. Cipher laughs dementedly, then screeches, then his voice takes on a different tone; it is _agonised_ , raw and rough.

“Stop _,_ stop _, stop, PLEASE, I—AAAAAAAAH,”_ he yells. Cipher has lost control, and Pine Tree thrashes and fights against the Beast as he sobs and wails. He drops the knife, protecting himself against flailing attacks. Spittle and blood flies between them. Pine Tree finds his face and tries to dig his thumbs into the Beast’s eye sockets, but his hands tremble. His pain makes him uncoordinated. Cipher takes advantage of the unclarity; with a spasm, Pine Tree’s eyes roll into the back of his head and when his pupils appear again, they are elongated and unquestionably demonic.

“Woo! Did not anticipate how much he would push back from a little bit of torture like that. We are just getting _started_ , pal,” Bill Cipher says casually.

The Beast has to pause for a moment, because he can feel his own storm inside him. Emotions that are not his own are flaring and twisting in his chest. He can tell Wirt yearns to save this poor creature, to bring himself a moment of redemption—but there is no redemption for him. Not after he failed to save his own brother. With this in his mind, the Beast lures him back to despair and resignation; he was so much easier to coax than that blasted brother of his, a boy good for nothing but firewood. It does not take long for his emotions to wither and dull. _It is so comforting to feel nothing at all, is it not, Wirt?_

There is no answer.

“Perhaps I should utilise the idea your host so kindly gave me,” the Beast murmurs, hovering his thumbs over Cipher’s pale, yellow eyes.

“Woah, woah, woah, I wanna see these innards, thank you very much. Shoo,” he says with the accompanying motion.

“Very well.”

“Why not reveal this Bleeding Heart’s bleeding heart instead?”

“Hmm…” the Beast considers, gazing at his chest. “Yes, that would do.”

He chooses not to pick up the knife again. He wants to do this himself.

With supernatural ability, the Beast buries his fingers into Pine Tree’s chest, buries into flesh and feeling around bone. He yanks back and rips him open. Skin and matter tear off in large sheets, Cipher’s cry piercing his eardrums, until there is revealed his ribcage and lungs holding a frantically beating heart hostage.

It is beautiful.

Even Bill Cipher needs time to adjust to this onslaught—he pants and lies there, presumably also keeping Pine Tree at bay more carefully this time around. With drool pooling from one side of his mouth, he says between gasps, “See, Pine Tree? Told you we were just getting started.”

The Beast drops his skin, leaving the amalgam spread open, a creature in the middle of a vivisection. Fluid coats his hands. The temptation makes him hunger. He cradles Cipher’s face with both palms flush against his cheeks, then drags them down over his neck, his grip tightening and then releasing. He wants to crush this human, but he has to remind himself to take it slowly. Cipher, now painted with shades of maroon and scarlet, licks his lips.

“So nice to find a kindred spirit. Just bros being bros, bonding over some good old-fashioned gore. Maybe I should come back here with Shooting Star sometime,” he contemplates.

“Let us not get ahead of ourselves. I want to appreciate what I have right here.” If he felt he could have another plaything, he really would crush this human all too soon.

“Oh, you’re so romantic, Beast,” Cipher says with a grin.

He traces each of his ribs, squeezes around the heart to feel the atriums and ventricles straining to keep this body alive. In the Unknown, it can work all it wants, beat until all the blood is drained and the skull is caved in and the body is in dozens of pieces that will never be reassembled. If it believes it needs to keep beating, it will.

Bill Cipher bites on his fist, like he needs to keep his thrill toned down to savour the intensity of the situation. Then, with a lightbulb moment, he remarks, “Apparently, the force needed to bite through a finger is the same as biting through a carrot.” Without waiting for a response, he sticks his little finger in his mouth and snaps his teeth around it. “Ow. Okay, that’s not true.”

The Beast picks up his knife again with his musical fingers, twirling it the same way Wirt would do in marching band. His body still has the instincts his mind has failed to overrun. “Allow me.”

“With pleasure!” Cipher agrees, stretching out to him like he is asking him to dance.

He takes his hand, caressing delicate skin, then lays it flat on the leafy ground, pushing down hard on his wrist. With his other hand, the Beast holds his knife with the tip squarely aimed at Cipher’s pinkie finger. In one swift movement, he drives it through air, body and into the soil, and holds fast against Cipher’s flailing to keep his hand in place. When he raises the weapon again, there is a neat severing right at the knuckle, the finger laying meekly as blood collects underneath it.

Bill Cipher tugs his arm back, and the Beast relinquishes his hold in order to allow the demon to appreciate his handiwork. It is strange how one small removal can so change the appearance of the extremity, the wrongness of the missing part highlighted by the bloody stump.

“Again! Again!” he cries, waving his other hand around.

The Beast grabs it with annoyance, and instead of placing it on the ground, digs his knife in between ring and pinkie and scores right in the middle. The gash in the connective flesh hangs open obscenely.

“Yeowch—not like _that_ ,” Cipher admonishes.

“Well, if you demonstrated some patience, maybe I would have a clearer understanding of your wishes,” the Beast replies tersely with a shake of his head.

“Oh, fine, fine, yes, take your time, just get the damn fingers off,” he says.

This time, the Beast acquiesces, repeating his earlier action, and Cipher yelps at the removal. He brings the cut-apart hand up to his mouth, placing his lips over the wound and sucking. Cipher moans weakly as the Beast looks at him from under half-hooded eyes.

The demon bites his lip. “Sexy.”

“Shall I continue to work?” he says once he pulls away, saliva and blood mixed on the abused hand.

“Yes, yes, yes, but just the ring fingers, alright? I still wanna be able to do some shit while we play. Just don’t ask for a pinkie promise or for my hand in marriage.”

“Duly noted.”

The Beast hacks away the two fingers with ease, then collects the four severed digits and contemplates them as he holds them.

“Feelin’ peckish?”

“I desire something…more substantial,” the Beast finally says, placing the digits back besides their tortured body.

“I hear thigh of Pine Tree is especially succulent,” he suggests with a leer.

White eyes meet pale yellow as he considers this, and then the Beast decides to cut up the trouser leg to reveal more flesh, from calves to thighs. The smell of viscera is heavy in the air, emanating from such an array of exposed organs, but when he presses his face against the amalgam’s leg, there is a faint scent of mechanical oil. He knows just a little more about Pine Tree’s life outside of the Unknown now, he supposes. Not that it matters anymore.

He bites down hard enough to pierce the skin with his canines, and then, wretchedly, demonically tears off flesh. His heart squirms with Wirt’s revulsion as he feasts, a visceral reaction from the usually placid boy to his monstrousness. It is pleasing to the Beast to use this human’s body to eat another. Even more so since he would not yearn to cannibalise if it were not for humans in the first place. Every time they told their stories, every time they believed him to be more and more malevolent, they transformed him; their beliefs became his truth. And, sometimes, the people of the Unknown called him another name— _wendigo._

And a wendigo he would be.

With the heightened pleasure from the textured, delectable meat in his maw, he almost forgets to notice Cipher’s reaction at all. His eyes flicker open. He pulls away and swallows. Cipher has his hands—what is left of them—inside himself, squeezing his own intestines to deal with the pain as he gasps. The ropes of gore squirm around his fingers, coiled snakes twining around and around each other in the cavity.

“It hurts…real good…” he says weakly, the nasal quality of his voice reduced to a quiet whine. All of their machinations are starting to add up—or, rather, take away from him; with chunks taken out of his leg, body parts missing and a red pool underneath him, Bill Cipher is fading. In a broken voice, he whispers, “Please…let me go… I just…want to go back to my family…” before he passes out. He hopes Pine Tree will not be the one to wake up.

The Beast places his slack leg down and dabs his mouth and chin clean with his shirt sleeve. As he straightens up, he can see that there are Edelwood branches starting to grow around the amalgam, reaching up from the ground and tipped with autumnal leaves. As much as Bill Cipher wants to enjoy this, his body is beginning to give up. It is inevitable. _There is only the forest, and there is only surrender._

The Beast lets him rest. He trails a finger down one of the branches by his hip, a drop of oil leaking out. Then, he picks up his lantern from the nearby spot he had placed it. As he stares into the flickering firelight, what had once been rendered an ember by the Woodsman, he feels a strange sense of gratitude to the brothers who had changed everything for him. Were it not for them, the Woodsman would have never disposed of the lantern, would have never allowed the Beast to reform and take control of his own soul again. When he decided to fuse himself with Wirt, and become Beast and Lantern-Bearer, he gained entirely new ways of growing his forest. He still remembers how it felt to wrap his arms around Gregory’s neck until the twitching stopped and the wood grew. Though some aspects of his human form were tiresome, he knows he would not go back to his old trypophobic self.

Bill Cipher stirs, groaning and lifting his head up. He blinks one eye, and then the other, and shakes himself awake. “Whew. Did I miss anything?”

He puts his lantern down and gestures to the Edelwood.

“Oh, man. Guess we’d better wrap up, huh?” He lifts his leg to inspect the damage. “Had your fill?”

The Beast puts his hand in his hair, rubbing the base of his antler as he considers. “For now. I will have your heart after we are through.”

“Good choice. So, what next?” he says, feeling up his stomach and ribcage like it is a salacious act.

After a moment, the Beast’s hands join his, appreciating the slippery, warm texture of his organs. The colour in his vision intensifies as he realises he can now anything to this body; he no longer needs to hold back. His hands ball up into fists so tight they shake as he says, “I want to break you.”

Cipher’s eyes widen. “Then _break me_ , Beast.”

He spreads his fingers wide over Cipher’s ribs and locks his arms straight. Pushing down from his shoulders, he applies enough pressure to make the bones fracture, only showing small amounts of damage at first, but as he pushes harder, they crack and break apart completely. The splintered bones pierce Cipher’s lungs as the Beast’s breathing becomes heavy and feral.

“I c—I can feel—,” Cipher attempts to say before he starts to hack up blood, decorating his already-painted face even more. The hacking coughs become laughs, as much as he is able to laugh. With his lungs filling with fluid, even this chatterbox has to admit defeat. The Edelwood branches are growing before their eyes, working their way around his limbs and intruding into his body bit by bit.

The Beast looks at Cipher’s smile and, wanting to give him one last thrill, takes his drenched hand back and picks up the knife again.

Cipher gurgles as the Beast positions the tip of the blade at the corner of his lips, a rough hand grabbing his chin and forcing his face to the left. His eyes squint with delight, elongated pupils staring straight at the pink, yellow and blue glow in the Beast’s. The Beast curves the knife up as he slashes across his cheek, making Cipher’s face-splitting smile literal. Warm blood gushes over his fingers as he turns Cipher’s face to the right and finishes the look.

The gashes pull apart and squeeze together as the amalgam works his jaw. He attempts to say, “Why so—,” before he’s coughing up blood again.

The Beast gives him a rare smile. “Why, this is the first time I have been able to hear my own thoughts since you arrived here, Bill Cipher.”

Cipher’s eyebrows lower, and the Beast chuckles darkly as he moves his hand down to his neck and his knife over his heart. “Now, it is time for your host to become a part of my forest.”

At the instant he drives the weapon into that frenetically-beating heart, a golden spirit somersaults out of the broken body. Triangular, with one eye and a black top hat. Bill Cipher’s true form.

The Beast flickers his attention back to his task, and he twists and rips the heart free of the veins and arteries holding it in place, takes it off of the blade and holds it in his palm. It beats once, twice, before giving up the ghost and stilling.

“Oh, Pine Tree, it sure did take some time but _boy,_ was it worth it!”

Pine Tree’s body looks so bereft, so utterly fragile. His skin is starkly pale now, and his head is tipped onto the ground, his eyes closed and his mouth ajar. His arms, encased in branches, lay with his cut wrists facing the sky. All of the movement in his chest—the writhing intestines, the inflating and deflating lungs, the beating heart—have come to a stop. White, fragmented ribs are threaded with earthy Edelwood. His shredded clothes lay soaked in his own blood around him, flicked with bits of flesh and cut-up parts. He looks… small, in death.

“Yes. The destination is all the more sweeter when the road is long, is it not?” the Beast says, touching his own skin with his fingertips.

Cipher floats over to put an arm around his shoulders. “Ab-so-lutely. And hey, you’ve been swell, such a great guy. Thanks for hooking me up with this awesome venue for torture! Love what you’re doing with all the trees and whatever. But I’d best be going, things to do, chaos to enact, you know the deal. And we’re both _great_ with deals, aren’t we?”

The Beast inwardly sighs, then admits, “I would not object to having more dealings with you. I have not felt that kind of pleasure in many moons. Thank you. For now, I shall bid you farewell.”

Bill Cipher blinks—or winks—and spins out of his hold. “Have fun burning up this sad-sack and chomping on that ol’ ticker. See you on the flip side. The universe is a lie, buy gold, _bye_!” he shouts before flashing out of this existence.

The Beast pauses, raises the heart, murmurs to himself, “The loveliest lie of all,” and bites into it.

Wirt is just as drained and deadened as this boy lying in front of him; he cannot even feel disgust anymore. He cannot feel anything at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to comment any corrections/suggestions, and thanks for reading~


End file.
